Last week when parts of the IPCC’s much heralded “Climate Change Report” were leaked to the press I, as much as any liberal, found myself despairing at some of its findings. No global warming for 16 years; record levels of sea ice; so many polar bears that the UN was proposing a humane cull to limit their numbers; no extreme weather conditions like hurricanes and typhoons – and – worst of all – the computer forecasts were wrong and there was no global warming! I felt like I did when as a child I found out that there was no Santa Claus!

Thank goodness, therefore, for the IPCC – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. When I was a young boy I remember going to the theatre to see Peter Pan. I, along with the rest of the children, became very upset when Tinkerbell was dying, but Peter Pan saved…